Purpose This purpose of this study is to understand how the spread of audit culture and the related public sector reforms have affected Finnish universities’ organization principles, performance measurement (PM) criteria and ultimately their reason for being. Design/methodology/approach Applying extensive qualitative data by combining interview data with document materials, this study takes a longitudinal perspective toward the changing Finnish higher education field. Findings The analysis suggests the reforms have altered universities’ administrative structures, planning and control systems, coordination mechanisms and the role of staff units, as well as the allocation of power and thus challenged their reason for being. Power has become concentrated into the hands of formal managers, while operational core professionals have been distanced from decision making. Efficiency in terms of financial and performance indicators has become a coordinating principle of university organizations, and PM practices are used to steer the work of professionals. Because of the reforms, universities have moved away from the ideal type of professional bureaucracy and begun resembling the new, emerging ideal type of competitive bureaucracy. Originality/value This study builds on rich, real-life, longitudinal empirical material and details a chronological description of the changes in Finland’s university sector. Moreover, it illustrates how the spread of audit culture and the related legislative changes have transformed the ideal type of university organization and challenged universities’ reason for being. These changes entail significant consequences regarding universities as organizations and their role in society.

This piece of writing is a joint initiative by the participants in the Gender, Work and Organization writing workshop organized in Helsinki, Finland, in June 2019. This is a particular form of writing differently. We engage in collective writing and embody what it means to write resistance to established academic practices and conventions together. This is a form of emancipatory initiative where we care for each other as writers and as human beings. There are many author voices and we aim to keep the text open and dialogical. As such, this piece of writing is about suppressed thoughts and feelings that our collective picket line allows us to express. In order to maintain the open‐ended nature of the text, and perhaps also to retain some ‘dirtiness’ that is essential to writing, the article has not been language checked throughout by a native speaker of English.

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to explore the potential positive effects of the design of a physical organisational environment on the emergence of an organisational culture conducive to organisational creativity. Design/methodology/approach – The study is based on an in-depth, longitudinal case study, the aim being to enhance understanding of how a change in physical space, including location, spatial organisation and architectonic details, supports cultural change. Findings – It is suggested that physical space plays an implicit yet significant role in the emergence of a culture conducive to organisational creativity. It appears from the case analysis that there are three aspects of culture in particular, equality, openness and collectivity, that may be positively affected by the design of an organisation’s physical environment. Practical implications – The careful choice, planning and design of an organisation’s physical location, layout and style can advance the appearance of an organisational culture conducive to creativity. Originality/value – The paper describes a longitudinal study comparing a case organisation before and after a change in its physical environment. The longitudinal data illustrates how a change in the spatial environment contributes to the emergence of a culture conducive to organisational creativity.

This paper reviews academic journal articles and scholarly books focusing on organizational creativity and constructs a schematic representation of the antecedents of organizational creativity, i.e. of the associated drivers and barriers. The literature on organizational creativity is reviewed using a traditional review technique. The focus is especially on more recent developments of the discourse, and therefore this work can be labeled as a state-of-the-art review. The review shows that drivers have clearly been studied more extensively than barriers. It was also recognized that the predominant approach among organizational creativity scholars is to dichotomize the factors influencing organizational creativity, more specifically to discuss the antecedents of creativity mostly from the viewpoint of drivers. In some cases, the antecedents are discussed from the perspective of barriers, but only rarely has it been recognized that the very same factor may either enhance or inhibit creativity. In this paper, such factors are called ‘either-or factors’. The paper suggests that the organizational creativity discourse should acknowledge that it is not enough to understand what enhances organizational creativity but also which kind of issues inhibit it and, especially, which factors may work either against or toward creativity under different circumstances. The review suggests that the majority of factors are most likely either-or by nature, although it has been overlooked in the discourse due to the dichotomizing tendency.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the discursive practices employed in academic research on organizational creativity through a critical lens. Design/methodology/approach – The literature on organizational creativity is reviewed from a discourse-theoretical perspective and three groupings of dominant discursive practices are identified. The theoretical and practical implications of the practices are discussed, and other potential aspects of creativity that appear to have been neglected or suppressed in the discourse are further examined. Findings – The dominant discursive practices in the organizational creativity research contribute to the building of a simplified and one-sided picture of organizational creativity; a stripped-down and diluted version that is more easily achievable and manageable, and leads to positive outcomes. Failure to recognize its inherent complexities reduces the value of creativity as an organizational asset. Originality/value – The findings contribute to the organizational creativity research in recognizing a range of dominant practices that appear to promote the dilution of the concept. Although the diluted and stripped-down version of organizational creativity suits the managerial agenda and complies with organizational discourse, it fails as an organizational asset, which should be about embracing the unconventional and risky, and taking advantage of change.